Knowledge claimed by expert observers (in some part, and in many varying ways) rejoins its subject matter, thus (in principle, but also normally in practice) altering it. There is no parallel to this process in the natural sciences; it is not at all the same as where, in the field of microphysics, the intervention of an observer changes what is being studied.

XREF: Relates to Giddens's double hermeneutic; knowledge in social sciences re-enters and transforms its subject matter in a feedback loop unlike physics.

Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Moderni…, loc. 116